Page 16 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

“Get more speed.”

“Don't get too much speed.”

“Keep your legs straight.”

“Why would he keep his legs straight?”

Nolan looks back. “Does anyone actually know what they're talking about?”

“No,” I say.

He runs. Swings out. And keeps going.

Nobody reacts at first.

Then Nolan reaches the end of the arc. Still holding the rope. He starts swinging back toward us.

“LET GO!” half the crew yells.

“I'M TRYING!”

Tessa cups her hands around her mouth. “THAT'S NOT SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO TRY!”

Nolan swings past the bank again. Still holding on. I'm laughing too hard to offer useful advice.

On the next outward swing, he finally releases and drops into the lake with a splash.

Nolan comes up sputtering, arms slapping at the surface like the water personally wronged him.

“Three!” Trevor calls.

“IT'S FREEZING,” Nolan says.

“It's snowmelt,” Tessa says, like this is common knowledge, which for most of us, it is.

“Nobody mentioned that.” Nolan swims for shore fast, still muttering, half about the score and half about the temperature.

The next couple hours pass. We swim. Snack. Get back in the water. At some point Tessa splashes Reid. Reid retaliates. That should have been the end of it. Instead, the whole lake turns into a war.

Ivy ducks behind me just before Tessa sends a wall of water in our direction.

It hits me square in the chest. I turn. “Really?”

Ivy peeks around my shoulder. “You're bigger.”

“So?”

“Better coverage.”

She ducks away before I can splash her. I go after Reid instead.

Eventually hunger gets everybody out of the water. We settle along the shoreline with sandwiches and whatever snacks survived Nolan.

Cassidy tosses me a bag of chips. “So where are you from, Beck?”

“All over.”

She waits.